


Impossibility

by ice_hot_13



Category: Original Work
Genre: Hockey, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 19:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/pseuds/ice_hot_13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two of their teammates remind Ryan of himself and Aaron, and maybe he should warn them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impossibility

Ryan doesn’t really want to see it, but how could he not? It’s right there across the locker room from him, as clear as if it were a mirror, unforgiving and merciless and unchangeable and all those things he’s just gotten used to shouldering.

            “Do they –” he starts, but cuts off. Aaron bumps his knee into Ryan’s, making a  _hmm?_ sound. “Nothin’,” Ryan mumbles, going back to taking his gear out of his bag.

            The two first years over there, though. Ryan can fucking  _see_ it, and he doesn’t know what to think. Matt and Khajit are sitting next to each other, leaning over to talk every now and then, everything  a response, like they couldn’t exist independently.

            Ryan plays distracted for the entire game. He can barely play, mind working too many different ways at once; he plays okay when he’s out there with Aaron, because that’s an instinct, that doesn’t require thought, but when Aaron jumps up to offense, Ryan’s game goes south. He kind of hates it – kind of  _really fucking hates it –_ when Aaron plays offense, but whatever, Ryan doesn’t own him.

            He stays on defense though; sometimes it feels like Aaron owns him. Leaving defence would feel like a betrayal, even though Aaron does it to him, all the time. Ryan wonders if their teammates can see it, when Aaron leaves him at the end of the bench, see how  _abandoned_ he feels. He hopes they can’t. He doesn’t know if he wants Aaron to be able to, because it might make Aaron come back, might make him want to stay away.

            In the locker room after the game, he tries not to look. He doesn’t want to see it, because Khajt is friendly and talkative and Matt is quiet and looks to Khajit all the time, and Ryan doesn’t want to see it, not at all, because it’s  _them._ He looks at these two first years and sees himself and Aaron, before everything started to hurt even more, before he realised that what he felt for Aaron was never going to go away. It’s like watching himself and Aaron from a distance; Ryan hadn’t known what he was getting himself into yet, wasn’t sure what was going on, how to explain everything he was feeling, the only constant just how happy he felt when he was with Aaron. And now, here they are, across the locker room from the two first years, so many miles away. Here, where Ryan just  _aches_ for Aaron, scrambling to free himself from this love that will ruin him for all that he can’t have, this place that is the end of the line, nowhere to go from here.

            He doesn’t know what to think, watching these impossibly young, similar teammates of theirs. What would he even do, if he could do anything? Warn them to stay away from each other? Tell them  _you may be creating the perfect, barely sufferable tragedy?_ He could never tell them to stay apart in good faith, because even as it ruins him, his friendship with Aaron is what saves him, every day, and who would he be without it?

            Ryan follows Aaron to the parking lot in silence, unable to stop thinking about it; he flinches in surprise when Aaron closes the trunk of his car a little too hard.

            “Hey,” Aaron says abruptly, his voice the only sound in the empty, dark lot, “am I your best friend?”

            “Are you fucking stupid?” Ryan asks, the only sentence his brain is ready to offer up, because,  _what?_ Who the hell else would it be, if not Aaron?

            “I was just wondering,” Aaron nearly mumbles, fiddling with his keys, looking down.

            “Dude, of  _course_ you are. Just- why would you even ask?”

            “Dunno,” Aaron exhales slowly, breath a foggy mist in the cold air. “Sometimes, I’m surprised you’d want me to be, I guess.”

            “Why wouldn’t I?” Ryan asks, bewildered. Across the lot, he sees Matt and Khajit leaving the rink, walking together slowly towards the bus stop across the street, wishes absurdly that they weren’t witness to this, that they could somehow be shielded from seeing what their relationship may someday become, filled with more uncertainties than Ryan ever knew.

            “I thought you’d figured it out. You’ve been kinda… I dunno, avoiding me, almost, lately.”

            Ryan wants to protest, but he knows it’s true; he’s been trying to untangle himself from the mess of his emotions, this love for Aaron that won’t let him go, promising to be more than he’d ever hoped for, impossible at its core.

            “Figured what out?” he asks instead. Aaron shoves his hands in his pockets, still looking down. Across the lot, where their echoing voices must be completely audible, Matt and Khajit are walking slower.

            “That I’m, you know. Into you. Like that.”

            “Like…”

            “Like I fucking  _love_ you, Ry, how did you miss that?” Aaron sounds as wounded as he does accusatory, and Ryan’s having trouble keeping up.

            “I guess- I was too focused on hiding everything from you,” he says, staring at Aaron and trying to comprehend, because did Aaron  _really_ just say that? Could this all be happening, really?

            “Well, there you go, now you know it,” Aaron says, almost bitterly, like he’s angry for having told Ryan.

            “Yeah,” Ryan says, and all he can think is  _he just said he loves me, he just said that,_ and he pushes Aaron against the back of the SUV easily, ignoring Aaron’s half-formed questions, just cups Aaron’s face in his hands and kisses him soundly. Aaron nearly trembles beneath him, kissing him eagerly, desperately, clutching at Ryan so tight. When they part, though, Aaron leans back against the car, an almost wounded, suspicious look on his face.

            “You’re not just… indulging me, are you?” he asks.

            “Do I ever?”

            “No, you self-centered fucker,” Aaron says, but he’s grinning, pulls Ryan back to him.

            In the reflection on the trunk window, Ryan can see the two first years, staring at them from across the lot, sees the way they walk away a minute later, their strides a little lighter, and he hears the strains of their voices, mumblings about the game in disproportionally happy tones.

             _Everything will turn out okay,_ Ryan doesn’t have to tell them, as he kisses Aaron gently, memorising every little bit of the sensation because it’s  _his_ now, they’ve finally reached this place he thought didn’t exist in real life.

            He sneaks a look at them, standing together at the bus stop across the street, a little closer to each other than anyone else would be.

             _You’ll be fine,_ he thinks, before he turns back to Aaron to whisper  _I love you_ against his lips.  


End file.
